Sunday, October 23, 2005

Hearts And Minds

Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed.

The poll, undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country.

It demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two and a half years of bloody occupation.

The nationwide survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which Tony Blair and George W Bush believed was fundamental to creating a safe and secure country.

The Sunday Telegraph disclosed last month that a plan for an early withdrawal of British troops had been shelved because of the failing security situation, sparking claims that Iraq was rapidly becoming "Britain's own Vietnam".

The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:

• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;

• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;

• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

The opinion poll, carried out in August, also debunks claims by both the US and British governments that the general well-being of the average Iraqi is improving in post-Saddam Iraq.

The report profiles those likely to carry out attacks against British and American troops as being "less than 26 years of age, more likely to want a job, more likely to have been looking for work in the last four weeks and less likely to have enough money even for their basic needs".

Let me help the apologists, enablers and spinners get started:

1. Democracy is a messy process. 2. 82% of Iraqis are dead-enders.3. The poll takers were in their last throes.4. A rock-solid 18% does not strongly oppose our military presence! As the other 82% of Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.5. Less than 26 years of age, looking for a job, and without enough money for even basic needs? Terrorist.

76 Comments:

What does it say about the state of our country's leadership that your satirical comments will most likely mirror official response to the poll? This assumes they don't completely ignore it. I'll have to watch Meet the Press tomorrow to see if Tim Russert puts this on the screen in the face of a Republican.

ferkrisesake. This needs to become a part of the conventional wisdom about occupation and trying to create democracy at gunpoint. In "Dying to Win", Robert Pape compiled the astounding statistic that 95% of all suicide attacks are carried out by people whose territory is occupied BY A DEMOCRATIC STATE. 95%! If serious people were in charge, this kind of analysis would receive serious consideration, but for the not-serious people who really are in charge, their best guess is 'they hate freedom'.

Anon 1, I believe we err to think the people in charge are not serious, or that they actually believe that 'the terrorists hate us for our freedoms'. No, their intent is deadly serious, as anybody familiar with PNAC has long known.

Their platitudes and lies are meant for a gullible public. We should have taken W seriously in March of 2001, when he said at a Washington dinner: "You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."

Who really believes that we are there to bring democracy? Will that person please step forward for I have a great deal on a bridge for you. Guaranteed to make you a millionar!!!

Well the grab for OUR OIL sure did not work. We only had to kill about 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqis. They had it coming for not kissing our feet to say thank you for invading their country. Besides they are arabs and muslims and therefore have hardly any human value.

Do they really think that the Iraqis do not realize that we consider anybody from 1 day old to 100 years old roadkill and therefore anything we do to them as jusifiable.

Well we have achieved something. They will hate our guts for the next 500 years, and with right. And there is NOTHING we can do to change their mind.

Well, the question is: Would Iraq be better off with or without our presence? Iraqis themselves seem to think "without." We should listen to them and leave, right? If we stay, we will probably be forced to leave anyway.

My first thought is that the British military gave the contract to British consultants who have political connections. The consultants then got a big fee and paid the Iraqi university research team peanuts for risking their lives to take the poll.

According to the Telegraph, the university reasearch team did not know the poll was for the military for security reasons. Now the research team is at risk because everyone in the world can read about the poll on the internet. How many Iraqi universities could have undertakent the poll?

The most obvious question is omitted from the list in the article is, "Are you better off before or after Saddam?" Some questions I would have asked: Are you aware of corruption in connection with Iraqi reconstruction projects? Are you aware that the US fought to maintain UN sanctions on equipment to repair clean water facilities after the Gulf War? Do you know if Americans support the continuation of Iraq war?

The Telegraph appears to have an "in" with the British military. If I remember correctly, it is owned by Hollinger and Richard Perle is associated with it. I read a Telegraph article a couple of years ago about Israelis following the 9/11 terrorists around the US. So why didn't the Israelis stop them from getting on the plane?

Soon after the US entered Baghdad, both the Telegraph and the San Francisco Examiner had stories about how their reporters found incriminating evidence of Russian complicity with the Iraqis by rummaging around the Ministry of Intelligence. Phil Bronfman, Examiner ppublisher, was even on CNN. What a bunch of bullshit. Like the reporters really opened some file cabinets and found files about Russians all on their own. One of the stories even claimed that underneath white-out, there was some secret name or another.

I don't believe most polls. I know after 9/11, I wouldn't have told a stranger on the phone that I didn't support the president or the government even though I didn't. I'm not crazy - that was around the time of the TIPS program.

The Able Danger story was great. The Pentagon confirmed that it was spying on US citizens long before 9/11 and I'm sure it still is but on a bigger scale. Posse comitatus - a remnant of American history.

The British military should have hired me. I could of told them how Iraqis feel without knowing any Iraqis. I empathize with them.

I know I am a bore on the subject but take Charlie Gargano. He is the vice chairman of the NY Port Authority and president of the Empire State Development Corporation.

Personally, I know he is a crook and associated with organized crime for twenty-five years. On Septeber 11, 2001, he was on the board of directors of a phony penny stock company, Eagle Building Technologies, that bought 85% of an Italian company which manufactured bombproof doors in April 2001 (see SEC filing).

Charlie has strong ties to Italy. According to the NYT, he only became a US citizen at 30 even though he grew up in the US.

He may have made $1m from Eagle stock options after 9/11 when Eagle and other phony company, Biosterile, claimed to have anti-terrorism equipment that Congress would invest in.

Whether or not, he was involved in 9/11, Charlie should have lost his job.

I did almost everything I was supposed to do. I wrote to most of the NYS newspapers. I wrote to AG Spitzer, Comptroller Hevesi, NYS Inspector General and Senator Clinton. I wrote to the SEC. I didn't report him to the FBI because I don't trust my local FBI office.

I even made the symbolic gesture of reporting a phony Florida real estate deal run by Gargano's buddy, Mario Posillico, to the IRS. Gargano, along with Carmine Avellino and some other crooks from Suffolk County, were all participants.

At a recent dinner party, successful professionals who are honest and pay their taxes agreed with me about Gargano. In fact, one of them even called him a crook at a country club with a lot of members who benefit from Gargano's crooked ways. But they want me to tell them what they can do.

The answer is nothing. No one listens.

So if I ever heard anything about, say, organized crime wanting to take out Gargano, I wouldn't tell a soul. If Gargano got bumped off, I'd still keep my mouth shut and secretly be delighted. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

My scenario is not that farfetched. From time to time, I have worked in various companies that employed people from different countries and I talk to them.

I am an honest citizen who votes and pays taxes. I understand perfectly well why those Iraqis support terrorism.

In interviews, U.S. government officials said the threat to U.S. interests from al-Zarqawi compared with that from bin Laden, whom al-Zarqawi pledged his loyalty to one year ago.

The director of the National Counterterrorism Center considers bin Laden a strategic plotter who is deep in hiding and out of regular contact with his followers, while al-Zarqawi is involved broadly in the planning of scores of brutal attacks in Iraq.

"He is very much a daily, operational threat," said Scott Redd, who is in charge of the government's counterterrorism strategy and analysis....

40 countries! That brings a whole new meaning to "fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them here" It is too bad Bin Laden couldn't have used his talent for good. He would have made a hell of a FEMA director to replace Mike Brown the Arabian Horse Show lawyer who is still on the payroll as a consultant.

OK, a vast majority of Iraqis want the Western occupation to end immediately.

I believe the consequences of immediate pullout would probably include lots of chaos, and ultimately possibly an Islamic dicatorship could ensue. But we have no legitimacy prolonging an occupation of a country that's overwhelmingly opposed to us, and which never attacked us. As Edward R. Murrow put it, as depicted in the current film, "I've searched my conscience, and I just can't see any justification for this."

As I see it, the only rational alternative to immediate pullout is immediate commencement of a real, serious, no-kidding orderly disengagement. One year tops. Anything else, there's a word for it, loaded with overtones, yeah, but nonetheless inescapable: Imperialism.

(...) I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.(...)"

The writer was assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975 to 1977, and arms control director under President Ronald Reagan.

Later, when confronted with these statements, he denied having ever said it:

"In a September 25 interview, a reporter from Sinclair Broadcasting said to Rumsfeld, "Before the war in Iraq... you said they would welcome us with open arms." Rumsfeld responded with a denial:

Never said that.... Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find anywhere me saying anything like [that].... I never said anything like that because I never knew what would happen and I knew I didn't know.

But on February 20, Rumsfeld was asked by PBS's Jim Lehrer: "Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?" And Rumsfeld responded: "There is no question but that they would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan--the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the Al Qaeda would not let them do.""

I agree with the comment, the main question is: Are you better off with or without Saddam? Or how about would you rather the US never got involved, in the first place?43% believve conditions for peace & stability have worsened? What was the number of Iraqis who thought peace was likely under their brutal dictator. First, one can only place so much confidence in polls. I am sure that no war opponent suddenly became a believer with the news that a poll suggests that Iraqis are happy Saddam is gone. But for any of this to have any validity we would have to see polls from before the invasion.

"The opinion poll, carried out in August, also debunks claims by both the US and British governments that the general well-being of the average Iraqi is improving in post-Saddam Iraq."Would that be the hundreds of thousads of Iraqis that Saddam gassed? Sounds alot like even the slaves agree that they were better on the plantations. The world would be much simpler if only every country but ours was ruled by a dictator who could suppress the will and desires of his population.

That being said if the polls continue like this than maybe an early exit is coming sooner than we think.

Interesting statistic: "The nearly 2,000 Americans killed in combat (1,998 on October 24, 2005) in Iraq since 2003 are more than were lost in Vietnam combat in the first four years of U.S. combat (1961-1965, when just over 1800 died). This total is more than were lost in the last two years of combat (1971-1972, when just over 1600 died),"...

bush co can call iraq an insurgency all they want, yet not be able to change what is happening from the resistance that it is.

bush is the worlds worst enemy simply because he has aligned himself with the same ugly neocons who have ruined and taken over your party.

nice world you enabled! but then, i'm one of those traitorous liberals who served honorably in the USN, then again in EMS and work healthcare.

i no longer recognize the authority of this government to serve, as it has failed so miserably at its main task. the star chamber bull shit has run amok and this government is broken both in trust and in deed.

now, how do we fix this and rebuild on the original ideals and bones of who we ASPIRED to be all along as a nation? (unfullfilled dream that that was...)

got me, looks more like we're the failed nation. didn't take long, did it?! how very sad.

I see another truth… I see an Iraq that will someday become a strong and prosperous nation. All they have to do is ignore liberal propaganda that tells them they do not have a chance in hell of succeeding with the U.S. helping them. What silly nonsense. I am glad the Germans and the Japanese took the "time" and "supreme effort" to rebuild their countries (with the help of the nations they were once at war with) and not give up. I get tired of the DOOM SAYING of the Left. If you have, any ideas that you think will help... bring them to the table. Otherwise - stop belly aching... That way you will be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

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